E3 2010: Another Take On The Old Republic

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May contain clumsy lightning.

By Nick Kolan

There is a huge amount of hype surrounding Star Wars: The Old Republic. In theory, it has everything going for it: it's fully voice-acted, based on one of the most well-established universes, and is being developed by Bioware --arguably the best role-playing-game developer in the world. Throw in the ability to work with or against thousands of other players and you should have a coveted "WoW-killer." Right?

I had my first chance to try out The Old Republic in the super-secret LucasArts room at E3 today. Somehow, despite all the above elements pointing to the contrary, my experience was decidedly average. Now, it is very important to note that I had about thirty minutes of hands-on time with the game, and that I was playing through a starting zone without the benefit of an introduction. I basically talked to an NPC and was told to go wander into a crypt as part of my trial of initiation. It's also really important to keep in mind that it is by no means finished. There are still many months for Bioware to fix and polish their game, and their "Spring 2011" release window could easily be pushed back. Like last year's, the new trailer is mighty cool. Playing as a Sith Inquisitor, I stepped out of the room where my quest-giver was spitting out orders in a pompous British accent. The arid zone that surrounded me, flanked on all sides by cliffs and carved stone figures, guided me past some insectoid beasts and into the entrance of a crypt. Along the way I decided to blast a few of the bugs in the face with my lightning, and this is where I ran into my major issue.

At level one I had a melee attack, an instant lightning attack, and a drawn-out channeled lightning attack. The instant lightning attack did not feel instant at all. I would use it and my character would do nothing for about a second (no cast timer or animation would appear) before he'd twitch into action. Lightning would arc from his hands and fry the beast, and then he'd go back to normal. I didn't experience the same thing with the other two abilities, though I experienced it consistently with the instant lightning, leading me to believe it wasn't simply lag. The cooldowns were also strangely displayed, and seemed to have trouble detecting when I was in range.

Activating my melee attack would cause my character to swing his not-quite-lightsaber (it was a big, electrified rod!) a few times. When faced with a group of enemies – which is very often – switching between targets during the attack wouldn't carry the attacks across to my new target. These elements made the combat feel sloppy and disjointed, which is really the opposite of what awesome force-wielding badasses should feel like. Again, of course, there is more than enough time for this to be polished and turned into a beautiful, flowing system.

Graphically, the game looked fine. It's a step up in terms of realism from the Clone Wars art style, but still very unique. The voice acting was very strong and the dialogue choices are nifty. We were shown a couple of glimpses from the PvP encounters, which are tailored to pit teams against each other, but weren't able to try them out. We also watched four of the developers take down a boss encounter using a Trooper – a ranged tank. There was a lot of movement and shooting, and a Jedi Knight leaping all over the place.

Obviously there is far, far more to the game than my thirty minutes was able to take in (crafting, exploration, the entire story) and, as I said, there are still many months of development time left for Bioware to iron out the creases, so I still look forward to playing The Old Republic at a later date.